Experiences of intergenerational communication about historical trauma among Asian American adult children of immigrants: a qualitative study

Historical trauma refers to large-scale distressing or life-threatening events experienced collectively by a group with a shared identity, such as ethnicity or nationality, which have intergenerational psychological impacts. Although many Asian American families immigrated to the US as a result of such events, little research has been conducted on Asian American experiences of historical trauma, particularly in terms of how immigrant parents communicate about their past trauma with their children. This study aimed to investigate what adult Asian American children of immigrants learn about their family history and how intergenerational communication about historical trauma takes place in Asian American immigrant families. Twenty Asian American adult children of immigrants completed qualitative interviews about their families' immigration histories and their experiences of intergenerational communication about historical trauma. Interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis. Four themes were identified: (1) Family History Related to Historical Trauma, (2) Communication About the Past, (3) Silence About the Past, and (4) Psychological Meaning-Making. Participants reported varied levels of knowledge about family and ethnic group history and varied degrees of engagement in intergenerational communication about historical trauma in their families. While most participants had some knowledge of their families' pre-immigration historical trauma, their family members' willingness to discuss the past ranged widely. Limited communication or silence about historical trauma were common, and participants were often reluctant to ask their relatives about the past due to concern about upsetting them. However, some contexts, such as school assignments related to family history, extended family gatherings, and engaging with relevant media, helped facilitate communication. This study provides an initial description of how intergenerational communication about historical trauma takes place in Asian American immigrant families. The results are consistent with the small body of previous research on intergenerational communication in Asian American immigrant families and elucidate new aspects and dynamics of this communication. Findings point to the need for further study of the experiences of under-researched Asian American groups and how intergenerational communication about historical trauma can be most beneficial in Asian American immigrant families.

Historical (intergenerational) trauma describes distressing or life-threatening events experienced collectively by a group with a shared identity, such as ethnicity or nationality, that have intergenerational psychological impacts (Evans-Campbell, 2008). Asian Americans, racialized as a successful “model minority,” typically are not thought of as a community carrying historical trauma. However, the very presence of large numbers of Asian Americans in the US is a consequence of Western imperialism and the resultant war, political instability, and poverty across Asia throughout the twentieth century and beyond (Kim-Prieto et al., 2018; Lowe, 1996; Okihiro, 2016). The largest Asian American ethnic groups in the US (Krogstad and Im, 2025) include: Chinese (subjected to European and Japanese imperialism; Hsu, 2015), Indian (colonized by Britain; Zamindar, 2007), Filipino (colonized by Spain and then the US; Lowe, 1996), Vietnamese (colonized by France and partitioned and invaded by the US; Espiritu, 2014), and Korean (colonized by Japan and partitioned and invaded by the US; Kim, 2004). After World War II, massive upheaval continued as formerly subjugated nations struggled to establish themselves after decades or centuries of imperialist exploitation. Many Asian Americans immigrated to the US during and after the Cold War, a period in which the US attempted to crush communist national liberation struggles in East and Southeast Asia, backing the Guomingdang during the Chinese Civil War and invading Korea and Vietnam (Hsu, 2015; Espiritu, 2014; Kim, 2004). During the Vietnam War, the US also dropped over 2.7 million tons of bombs on Cambodia, paving the way for the Khmer Rouge to come to power (Tang, 2015). In the also heavily bombarded Laos, the US Central Intelligence Agency recruited ethnic minority Hmong soldiers for a “Secret War” against the Lao and Vietnamese communist parties (Lee and Clarke, 2013).

These brutal and traumatic histories are often erased, or told very differently, in mainstream US culture, which in turn shapes how these events are remembered in Asian American communities. Dominant narratives in the US cast America as a benevolent force for freedom around the world while erasing those directly impacted by US imperialism or recasting them as grateful to be rescued—a process Espiritu (2014) calls “organized forgetting” (p. 20). This dominant silence leaves little room for Asian American communities, families, and individuals to tell their stories of historical trauma. Based on oral histories of Korean American survivors of the Korean War, Liem (2007) proposes a model of silence about historical trauma in which silence at the level of the state (e.g., framing the Korean War as the “forgotten war” or as the noble rescue of South Korea by the US) reinforces silence at the level of the ethnic community, then at the level of the family, and finally at the level of the individual. In families, survivor generations may avoid discussing their trauma due to feelings of horror or shame, and younger generations may feel afraid to ask about the older generations' traumatic experiences. For survivors, avoidance of the past can be a way of coping with unresolved trauma, but sharing about the past may be an important step in healing from trauma.

There has been little research on historical trauma in Asian American immigrant families, and even less research on how Asian American immigrant parents communicate with their children about their experiences of historical trauma. Intergenerational communication about historical trauma can be understood as a form of intergenerational family storytelling, which Fivush and Kellas (2025) theorize as a component within a larger system of family storytelling. Intergenerational family stories are autobiographical stories told by a member of an older generation to a younger generation (e.g., parent to child) and can play an important role in development for the younger generation. As Merrill and Fivush (2016) argue, intergenerational narratives allow individuals to develop a personal identity that is situated within their family and larger sociohistorical context (an “intergenerational self”; p. 75). These narratives may be especially salient in adolescent identity development as individuals begin to form meaningful personal narratives. Knowledge of family history may have particular implications for Asian American identity development, as the historical trauma that drove their immigration to the US is a core aspect of group identity in some Asian American ethnic communities (Alexander, 2004; Nguyen, 2016). For older generations, sharing intergenerational narratives can be a conduit for strengthening relationships with the younger generation and transmitting lessons and values (Merrill and Fivush, 2016). Research suggests that knowledge of intergenerational narratives is associated with positive outcomes for young people, including greater wellbeing, self-esteem, social and academic competence, and sense of purpose and meaning in life (Duke et al., 2008; Fivush and Kellas, 2025).

However, research has shown that silence is a common and perhaps predominating form of intergenerational communication about historical trauma—a phenomenon which has been described as a “conspiracy of silence” (Danieli, 2007, p. 65). The survivors' silence about their trauma, even within their own families, may prolong their struggles with the consequences of their trauma and leave their children left to wonder why their parents behave the way they do (Danieli et al., 2016). Consistent with Liem's model, silence has also been found to be a common form of intergenerational communication about historical trauma in Asian diaspora families affected by historical trauma, including Cambodian, Hmong, Japanese, Sri Lankan, and Vietnamese families (Jeyasundaram et al., 2020; Lee and Clarke, 2013; Lin et al., 2009; Lin and Suyemoto, 2016; Nagata et al., 2015). Individuals commonly described not learning much from their parents about family history of historical trauma and sometimes inferred from their parents' silence that discussing the past was taboo. This could leave them feeling resentful of their parents' negative behavior, which they could not contextualize in terms of their parents' trauma.

The existing research on Asian American historical trauma reveals how maintaining or breaking silence at the level of the wider society can make a difference in intergenerational communication about historical trauma. In Lee and Clarke (2013)'s study, Hmong American college students discussed how silence within their families reflected how the impact of the US wars in Southeast Asia on Hmong communities is not recognized by the US government or mainstream education. Cambodian American young adults in Lin and colleagues' study similarly linked silence in their families to the erasure of the US bombings of Cambodia and the experiences of Cambodian refugees from mainstream public discourse and education (Lin and Suyemoto, 2016; Lin et al., 2009). Lin et al. (2009) argue that education can serve as a “catalyst” for intergenerational communication by offering a context for sharing and learning about family experiences of historical trauma that is mutually acceptable: school projects about family history provided a “legitimate reason” for the younger generation to ask about family history and for the older generation to share their stories, as well as a clear and safe structure for communication (p. 203).

Research suggests, however, that not all forms of intergenerational communication about historical trauma are beneficial—some communication may be detrimental to parent-child relationships and to the children's engagement with their family history. Lin and Suyemoto (2016) and Lin et al. (2009) described how Cambodian refugee parents would sometimes use either silence or communication about trauma to punish or shame their children, which negatively affected parent-child relationships and decreased participants' motivation to learn about their family history. Some Vietnamese and Tamil children of refugees in Jeyasundaram and colleagues' (2020) study similarly reported that the only times their parents disclosed information about their past traumatic experiences were during conflicts or arguments. These forms of communication could push the children away from their parents or make children feel guilty and afraid of disappointing their family.

The present study sought to address the gaps in the literature on Asian American historical trauma by exploring how intergenerational communication about historical trauma occurs in Asian American immigrant families. Data were collected from young to middle-aged adult children of immigrants to capture how participants experienced this communication over the course of their upbringing and integrated it into their sense of identity. The study was guided by the following research questions:

What do Asian Americans learn about their family history? How much of this history includes learning about historical trauma?

What intergenerational communication about historical trauma is occurring in Asian American immigrant families? How does this communication and/or silence take place?

All study protocols were preregistered (https://osf.io/tymrb) and approved by the Institutional Review Board of the University of Minnesota.

Participants

Twenty participants were recruited for the study. Participants were eligible for the study if they (1) identified as Asian American (i.e., were of East, Southeast, or South Asian descent); (2) had at least one Asian parent who immigrated to the US from a country in Asia; (3) were born in the US or immigrated to the US as a child (i.e., before age 12; Rumbaut, 2004); (4) were between the ages of 20-40 years old; and (5) endorsed their parents experiencing adversity before immigrating to the US. Full participant demographics are provided in Table 1 and participant pseudonyms and select demographic characteristics are listed in Table 2. Participants ranged in age from 20 to 39 years old (M = 28.90, SD = 5.66). All participants identified as Asian American and four participants (20%) identified as multiracial. Participants' Asian ethnicities included: Cambodian (1), Chinese (2), Chinese-Vietnamese (3), Filipino (3), Hmong (2), Japanese (1), Lao (1), Taiwanese (1), Tamil (1), and Vietnamese (5). In terms of gender, 14 participants (70%) were cisgender women; three (15%) were nonbinary, genderqueer, agender, or genderfluid (hereafter noted as “nonbinary”); and three (15%) were cisgender men. Participants' parents immigrated to the US between 1975 and 2000. Demographic information on participants' immigrant parents (N = 35) is reported in Table 3.

Procedure

Participants were recruited online via social media and email listservs with the assistance of two Asian American-serving non-profit organizations. Prospective participants were screened for eligibility via a brief survey. Participants were then contacted to schedule an interview and complete a demographic survey. The first twenty eligible participants who completed an interview were included. Interviews were semi-structured and were conducted with each participant by the first author or a trained research assistant using Zoom videoconferencing software (see Supplementary Material for the interview guide). Interviews were recorded and automatically transcribed via Zoom; transcripts were reviewed and corrected by the first author and a research assistant. Participants were compensated for their participation with an electronic gift card.

Data analysis

We conducted a codebook thematic analysis which intentionally and systematically integrated reflexivity (Braun et al., 2019; Braun and Clarke, 2021), drawing epistemologically from subtle realism and pragmatism (Hammersley, 1992; Kelly and Cordeiro, 2020). The coding team comprised three coders: a second-generation Chinese American queer and transgender/non-binary person (JC), a 1.5-generation Chinese American queer woman (SL), and a second-generation Punjabi Indian American woman (a research assistant). Each interview transcript was independently coded by two coders who then met to review and discuss the coding. If coders had made different interpretations, they engaged in collaborative dialogue around each coder's underlying experiences, emotions, and cognitions as well as the nuances of the interviews. These dialogues involved re-reading the transcripts aloud, revisiting interview recordings, and discussing any changes in coder reactions and interpretations to deepen collaborative interpretation. As a result, the coders would retain both codes, select one code over the other, or adopt a new or refined code. In the event of irreconcilable disagreements, other strategies (e.g., bringing in a third coder) could be implemented, although no such cases were encountered. Early coding was semantic to most directly reflect participants' exact wording; as coding progressed, it became more latent.

We iteratively consolidated codes into a codebook and identified themes as our understanding of relationships among codes evolved. We used the codebook as an instrument for documenting and organizing the coding process and identification of themes, rather than conceptualizing it as documenting an objective truth (Braun and Clarke, 2021). We practiced reflexivity in all analytic stages (Braun and Clarke, 2019). Before and throughout data analysis, we engaged in reflexive discussions of the individual identities and experiences that we brought to the process, including personal connections to the study topic. These reflections helped us connect with and integrate previous literature on intergenerational communication about historical trauma in Asian diaspora families (e.g., Jeyasundaram et al., 2020; Lin et al., 2009) to develop and refine codes and themes.

Four themes were identified describing participants' experiences with intergenerational communication about historical trauma: (1) Family History Related to Historical Trauma, (2) Communication About the Past, (3) Silence About the Past, and (4) Psychological Meaning-Making. A thematic map is shown in Figure 1.

Theme 1: Family history related to historical trauma

The first theme captures participants' reported knowledge of their family's history related to historical trauma. Participants described their family's experiences with specific historical events (e.g., war) as well as subsequent experiences such as attempting to flee their country of origin, living in refugee camps, and immigrating to the US.

Experiences of historical trauma events

Participants described their family's direct experience with specific historical trauma events such as World War II, the Vietnam War, the Secret War, and periods of political and economic instability such as the Cultural Revolution. Those whose families lived during a war in their home countries described family members' experiences of wartime violence as civilians, including gunfire, bombings, and massacres. For example, Ash (28, Filipino/white, non-binary), shared their grandmother's experience as a child in the Philippines during World War II:

…she lived in, like, a small farming village—remote—um, and so the Japanese army just sort of came through… there were no soldiers or anything, no defense, no nothing. And so she had, like, names of people, of relatives, who she had to watch get, like, dismembered, and other relatives who were forced to, like, dig the mass grave for them. Um, and [she] describe[d], like… wagons of bodies going past… really vivid detail. And a really horrible thing for a kid to witness.

Some participants discussed their family members' experiences related to military service during wartime. Amy's (34, Hmong, woman) uncles were involved in the Secret War from a young age: “they were young boys being taught how to hold a gun and how to shoot.” Other participants' family members lost loved ones during war.

Participants discussed other ways in which their families were impacted by historical trauma events. Several participants described how their parents' or grandparents' educational or career aspirations were disrupted by historical trauma events. Two participants reported that their parents or grandparents had lost contact with a member of their family due to historical trauma events but were fortunately able to reconnect with them years later after immigrating. For some participants' families, the historical conditions in their home countries, such as poverty or colonization, contributed to adversity. Henry (29, Chinese, man), for example, shared how his mother described how she ate growing up:

We'd have our rice, and then we'd go to buy, like, pork belly specifically because it just has… more fat and calories in it. And then you would just, like, clean your bowl, and you never leave any—any speck of rice left in there… a treat would be, like, just meat.

Escaping home country

Many participants described their families' efforts to leave their home countries due to historical trauma events, sometimes over the course of multiple attempts. Five participants' parents were boat people (i.e., refugees who fled Vietnam by boat). Cynthia (24, Chinese-Vietnamese, woman) described her father's experience:

men and children were somehow on the bottom floor, and then, like, women were all on the top floor of this boat. But then this boat was attacked… people were just shooting at the boat because they were trying to escape. And, like, the boat was starting to sink […] and my dad explains how… it feels like it's just all of a sudden, like, downpour raining. But then you look at yourself and it's not rain, it's blood… it's raining blood, and, like, you look up and basically, unfortunately, you could see that his auntie had, you know, been shot and, like, killed.

Four participants' parents were forced to flee from Laos to Thailand on foot due to the Secret War. Pa (36, Hmong, woman) described her mother's experience making the journey:

She was just like, “You don't understand the struggle that we went through to run and to live till today.” …she had smaller kids at that time, crying, and all that stuff. She was like, “I would be in caves with dead bodies, and I would just have to be quiet. And, like, you're so scared to stay alive that those dead bodies was nothing to you.”

Amy's (34, Hmong, woman) mother told her how her family came close death on the journey: they were “given safe passage [across the Thai border], and then they were the last group, and then, when she turned around, um, the group behind her started getting shot at.”

Some participants' families did not have the option to all leave together and parents had to make difficult choices to send children away through any available arrangements. As Jenny (26, Vietnamese, woman) described for her family, “especially with that family separation and not knowing if they would see each other… it was a really difficult time for them.” Some, like Katherine's (23, Chinese-Vietnamese, woman) mother's family, had to leave children or other family members behind on their journeys out of their home countries. Cynthia (24, Chinese-Vietnamese, woman) and Vivian (32, Vietnamese/white, non-binary) had parents who were separated from their families from adolescence until adulthood after leaving Vietnam alone as children; for example, Vivian's mother left Vietnam with a family friend and lived in a group home and then with a foster family in the US.

Refugee camp experiences

Several participants' parents lived for some time in a refugee camp after escaping their home countries. A few participants recounted that their parents described their experiences as relatively positive, as they were able to receive services or make a long-term home in the camp. As Amy (34, Hmong, woman) shared, “a lot of the Hmong communities lived in, like, refugee camps, where they considered that, like, their village—their home—even though they knew they were camps.” Other participants described their families' refugee camp experiences as adverse due to poor living conditions, resource scarcity, and continued threats of violence. Pa (36, Hmong, woman) said of her older siblings who spent time in a refugee camp: “I kind of feel like they kind of just block out that memory, of having to go through all of that.” Ly (31, Cambodian, woman), whose mother fled from Vietnam to Thailand, shared, “even when she went to the refugee camp … every single night, you would go to bed, put your, um, like, your cooking utensils in a bag, and just be prepared to run” because of the continuous “bombs and fighting.” In addition to this constant threat of wartime violence, Ly's mother faced also faced the threat of sexual violence as a refugee:

[My mother] married my dad almost immediately from the time she got [to the refugee camp]—within a month because she said it was just so dangerous being a young woman who was not married, so she needed to get married so that she wouldn't be raped or, you know, pursued. Um, she said that there was a lot of… like, older officials who wanted to marry her as like—kind of like a concubine… she needed to get married so that she could make it—make it through every day living in a refugee camp.

Theme 2: Communication about the past

This theme describes how participants' family members (primarily parents, but sometimes extended family members such as grandparents) communicated with participants about family history. Subthemes describe various aspects of how this communication took place.

Openness about the past

Participants discussed the extent to which their parents and family members showed openness to communicating about the past. A few participants reported that their parents were very open and even enthusiastic about talking about the past. For example, Cynthia (24 years old, Chinese-Vietnamese, woman), described her father as very open about his past experiences:

I can see his experience being very traumatizing… but I do—uh, I would say he's very vocal. My dad's a very talkative person; he's very outgoing. And so he will willingly tell, like, any friends that come over for dinner.

In contrast, most participants described immigrant family members as less open about the past, only speaking about the past when prompted to do so. Ash (28, Filipino/white, non- binary), for example, said that their family members only bring up their past “once in a blue moon, and only if someone else brings it up.”

Asking about the past

Participants discussed their experiences initiating conversations about the past with their parents or other immigrant family members by asking about the past. Some participants recalled directly asking their family members about specific experiences of historical trauma. Vivian (32, Vietnamese/white, non-binary), for example, shared, “I've asked [my mother], like, ‘What did you think about the tornado sirens when you heard them for the first time?' And she was like, ‘Oh, yeah I was really scared,' because they lived in Saigon when it fell.” Participants also described exercising sensitivity when asking family members about the past. Lisa (20, Lao, woman) shared why she tends not to ask her mother about the past: “I guess I'm scared of making her upset—not, like, angry at me, but, like, maybe it'll make her sad or something, or maybe it'll bring something that she doesn't want to talk about.” Similarly, Amy (34, Hmong, woman) said, “I don't want them to relive their trauma, so I want them to share as much as they want to.” Other participants described not wanting to push too much by asking more questions when talking to their family members about the past. Jonathan (22, Vietnamese, man) said of asking his mother about the past, “if I can tell that, like, she doesn't feel like talking about it, then I'm not really one to pry.” Vivian described having to tailor their approach to asking their mother about the past so that they appeared to have an acceptable reason for asking: “I'm always careful about how I ask my mom about things… It's like, ‘Have I read something recently? Can I relate it to this?' Like, I can't just flat out ask her…”

Constructive forms of communication

Participants described family members engaging in forms of communication about the past that were aimed at facilitating the participants' learning about their family history. Kim (30, Vietnamese, woman) said, “my parents will try to, like, have us watch, like, Vietnamese war documentaries, just to be like, ‘this is what we had to, like, live through and… grow up with.”' Kim's parents also had other indirect ways of sharing their past with her: “when, like, relatives visited, and they could, like, talk to each other, and process, they'd have us listen.” Vivian (32, Vietnamese/white, non-binary) shared that their mother did not talk much about the past, but since retiring, she had begun writing about her experiences surviving the Vietnam War and immigrating to the US and had shared these writings with Vivian. Four participants reported they had formally interviewed their family members. For example, Jenny (26, Vietnamese, woman) had conducted oral histories with her grandparents:

I was doing… an Asian American, like, centered kind of internship, and, like, someone had mentioned they were doing oral histories, and so I think I got that idea then, and then [...] was able to spend more time at home … I was also feeling a sense of, like, my grandparents are getting older and… that was something I wanted to talk to them about.

Teaching “life lessons”

Some communication participants described their parents using stories about the past to teach them a lesson (e.g., when disciplining the participant). Kim (30, Vietnamese, woman), for example, described how her parents most often mentioned their past when admonishing her and her sister:

it was more so whenever we were acting up or acting out. [Laughs] …my sister and I would, like, play-fight all the time. And, like, once my sister actually, like, got a little injured, and my dad started yelling at us… he was like, “How could you do this to your own sibling! Don't you know that, like, your family is the only thing you have!” [Laughs] He was like, “Do you know how we were separated from our family? You should be happy that you have your sister here to play with you!”

Other participants described their parents making comparisons between their own past hardships and challenges the participant was facing. As Ly (31, Cambodian, woman) said of her mother, “She's always saying things like, ‘Oh, when I was growing up, I didn't have this, and I didn't have that.' Any hardships that we ever have cannot be spoken of because they don't compare to her hardships.” Eli (23, Chinese, non-binary) shared, “[My parents are] always like, [laughs] ‘Well, we had it much harder, and we turned out fine,' or whatever. Or like, ‘We had so many more obstacles, and the path is so easy for you.”' These moments made Eli feel “guilty, and also a little bit just like not feeling understood.”

Contexts facilitating communication

Participants identified common contexts which seemed to provide openings or legitimate reasons for their immigrant family members to share about the past and/or for participants to ask them about the past. Education provided a variety of opportunities for parents to communicate about the past that were mutually acceptable to the participants and their parents. Vivian (32, Vietnamese/white, non-binary), for example, recalled that their mother regularly visited their school when they were growing up to share her immigration story:

My mom really tried to make an effort with the school to get people to understand, like, racial differences, so she came in [and] told her story to the class every year starting in kindergarten and did that through eighth grade. Like, dressed in an áo dài [Vietnamese dress] and, like, showing pictures and explaining the story… just to get people to understand different experiences because again, my school was 99% white…

Amy (34, Hmong, woman) shared that when she was in school growing up, her teachers encouraged her and other Hmong students to ask their immigrant family members about their past:

…growing up, [teachers] would be like, “Oh yeah, your parents and your grandparents have great history; you should always ask them” … the teachers would look at us, right, pick us out, be like, “Yeah, you guys have big stories. You guys came from [a] war-torn country,” like, “your parents would know.”

Given the large Hmong refugee population in the area where Amy grew up, her teachers were familiar with the historical trauma the Hmong community had faced and recognized that Hmong students' parents and grandparents could be a valuable resource for them to learn about history.

Several participants reported having school assignments that prompted them to ask family members about the past. These included assignments to interview a parent or other family member, or participants taking the initiative to use academic projects as an opportunity to explore their family history. Amy (34, Hmong, woman) shared that her family members were otherwise reluctant to talk about the past, but they were willing to do so for her school assignments because of the value they placed on education:

My dad was like, “Why do you want to know?” Then I'd be like, “Oh, it's for a homework assignment,” and they're like, “Oh, okay,” you know? Like, excited to share, right', cause the Hmong community is all about education.

For Lisa (20, Lao, woman), interviewing her mother for an assignment in high school was the first time she learned about the circumstances of her mother's immigration: “That's when she told me, it was about a war, and then, like, being a refugee and stuff.” Isabelle (29, Filipino/Mexican, woman) shared that taking ethnic studies courses in college prompted her to ask her family members more questions about the past.

Time spent together as a family was another common context in which family history was shared. Cynthia's (24, Chinese-Vietnamese, woman) family had dinner together every night, which was a good time for her to ask questions:

I would just randomly ask my dad over dinner… similar to, like, questions that you're asking me. Like, “Oh, so Dad, when did you, like, come here?” Or like—like, “Dad what were you like before Grandpa and Grandma, like, came to [the US]?”—and, like, just kind of asking about particular things. And then, you know, once my dad gets rolling, like, there's always follow up questions from me, and so that ends up turning into, like, the whole story.

Many participants reported that their parents talked about the past more when they were with extended family members. Amy (34, Hmong, woman) shared that the occasions when her parents shared stories about the past tended to be “when we have big family gatherings, the aunties would all sit together or, like, they're all together in the kitchen. They randomly tell stories, right, and so, like, I would just go up there and listen.” Other participants also observed that the topic of historical trauma came up more naturally when their parents reminisced with other family members who shared those experiences than it did when only the nuclear family was present. For Kim (30, Vietnamese, woman), extended family gatherings were times when she was invited by the older generations to listen to stories which her family members would tell together:

I think these more specific [stories] came out whenever they were talking to other relatives. And then they'll be like, “Oh, Kim, like, listen to this,” like, “this person this happened to,” and, like, “your uncle here knows this person.” So I think, like, their way of storytelling was always a little bit more, like, contextual and rooted in, like, reminiscing. [Laughs] …they would like to tell stories more if, like, the other person that—that was visiting or [they were] talking to was, like, involved in it, or, like—or tell memories of the refugee camp and, like, funny stories from that, and—but, like, it would normally be, like, a co-telling, like, “Oh, remember, this happened? Oh, yeah, I remembered you did this.”

Katherine (23, Chinese-Vietnamese, woman) also observed this “co-telling” of family history: she found family gatherings were a good opportunity to ask her parents about the past “because I know it'll be easier for, like, the group to talk about it to, like, help each other remember.”

Engagement with media, including television, films, books, art exhibitions, music, and social media content, was another prominent context which facilitated communication about the past. Some participants, like Isabelle (29, Filipino/Mexican, woman), noted that relevant media was something that could prompt their family members to talk about the past, “like if something comes up on TV, like, my mom—my grandma says something or, like, my mom says something, because, like—yeah, both of them still exclusively watch Filipino TV.” Vivian (32, Vietnamese/white, non-binary) recalled their mother spontaneously sharing surprising new information about her past in such a moment:

We saw the musical Miss Saigon … while we were at the musical, my mom was like, “Yeah, I was there.” And we were like, “What?” And it turns out she was, like, literally on the roof of the American embassy as Saigon fell, and we just had no idea until we saw the musical.

Other participants described how their family members used media to communicate about the past with them. Katherine (23, Chinese-Vietnamese, woman) discussed how her grandparents, had been using YouTube to share memories of their hometown in Vietnam with her:

…they recently just learned how to work YouTube, like, on the—the TV. Yeah, that's been, like, huge for them. They, like, literally spend their days scouring, like… clips of what, like, their hometown looks like… that's kind of, like, their medium to, like, storytell for me.

Visiting their home country was another context in which participants' parents were more likely to share their past experiences. For Jonathan (22, Vietnamese, man), traveling to Vietnam with his father, whom he did not grow up with, provided an opportunity for his father to share

…a ton of stuff. Whenever we would just, like, kind of drive around our moped or whatnot, he would just kind of point out, like, “Oh, like, this is where I went to school,” or, like, “I used to live here,” or “this is where my friends lived,” you know, all that stuff… that was probably the longest we've, like, been in, like, very close proximity in, like, a long time. So, I think he just kind of divulged everything in that moment.

For other participants, visiting their parents' home country allowed them to spend time with extended family members who could tell them about the past. Danny's (34, Filipino, man) father passed away when Danny was a child, and “whenever I'm in the Philippines… my uncles and my aunt would tell me stories about, you know, growing up with my dad, and what they were doing and stuff like that.”

Documenting the past

Some participants expressed an interest in documenting their family's history, both for the benefit of themselves and their family as well as to share with a wider audience. As Pa (36, Hmong, woman) said,

all of us, um, immigrant children that was born and raised here, or… that came here… our parents is all we have left to tell the story. So, we have to record all of this, because this is our history. Because once they're gone, it's completely gone.

Other participants were interested in audio-recording or writing down their parents' stories; Ly (31, Cambodian, woman) was interested in writing a book about her mother's story. For Jenny (26, Vietnamese, woman), conducting oral histories with her family members was a way to document her family history, which could benefit the general public as well as members of her family who did not speak Vietnamese:

at some point it'd be, like, nice to actually, like, translate or add subtitles to their stories… my aunt's son, is, like, half Vietnamese, like, half white, but he—he actually doesn't know any Vietnamese, because… they speak English at home, and… they're still his grandparents, but he, like, really can't talk to them at all, and so, like, sometimes I think, oh, that would be nice even for him, or for even, like, future generations, or something, like, if I can subtitle it and, like, have these stories.

Theme 3: Silence about the past

This theme describes how participants observed silence about family history taking place in their families. Silence included an absence of explicit communication about the past as well as limited or ambiguous communication that left gaps in participants' knowledge of family history.

Not talking about the past

Almost all participants described a parent or other family member as not talking much about the past. For example, Miriam (21, Tamil, woman) decided to seek out information from her grandparents because her parents would not discuss the past with her:

…this year I went to India all by myself. And I, like, sat my grandparents down… I was like, “You have to tell me everything about them,” like, “They won't tell me anything.” And so that's how I learned a lot about my family history and my parents and stuff.

Pa's (36, Hmong, woman) parents occasionally talked about the past with her: “if they are, I guess, like, in the mood they will, but majority of the time it's like, you know, like, ‘For what?”'

Many participants shared that there were certain topics from the past that their family members did not talk much about, typically experiences related to historical trauma or their immigration to the US. Some participants knew of general aspects of their family member's experiences but had little sense of the details or of what those experiences were like for their family members. Lisa (20, Lao, woman), for example, eventually learned that her mother became a refugee and immigrated because of a war, but her mother still had never told Lisa which war it was or about her experiences in the war. Amy (34, Hmong, woman) shared that what her father has said about his experience growing up during the Secret War was vague: “he didn't tell me, like, about how he felt about the war; he just told me that was hard for him because he didn't have his parents because of, um, whatever the situation was.” For Kim (30, Vietnamese, woman), the topic of the Vietnam War was something that her parents seemed to avoid: “I think they talked a lot about their childhood, and I think it kind of stops when they talk about their, like, teenage years, because that's, like, the main conflict years, I would say?”

Resistance to talking about the past

Participants observed both direct and indirect indications that their family members did not want to discuss the past. For example, Miriam (21, Tamil, woman) shared that when she traveled to India to ask her grandparents about her parents' pasts, “it took a lot of convincing for them to, like, open up to me. It was literally the last day I was there; I was like, ‘I'm literally going on a plane in 12 hours,' like, ‘you have to tell me.”' Ash (28, Filipino/white, non-binary) described how their mother would answer their questions about her past “just enough to, like, answer the question, but… the answers also felt really final; like, vague and final… Like there's a… period on the end of this sentence, and you're not getting any more from it.” Other participants also reported picking up on implicit cues that their parents did not want to discuss the past further. Sarah (39, Vietnamese, woman) shared that she had learned to stop asking her parents about the past: “I always knew that asking questions about feelings wasn't going to get me any type of response or result or anything like that.”

Participants also described their parents discouraging them from asking about the past. Sarah shared a moment when her mother explicitly instructed her not to ask her father about the past:

I feel like I either asked my mom about the Vietnam War, and she's like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, don't—don't ask your dad about it.” …it was almost, like, immediately squashed, and like… it wasn't—nothing was ever out in the open.

Other participants' parents used more indirect tactics to discourage questions about the past. For Miriam (21, Tamil, woman), her mother's responses to her questions were sometimes so negative that they made her afraid to ask more: “I one time asked my mom if she ever had a boyfriend, and she literally started yelling at me… it's, like, so scary to even ask her anything.” Vivian's (32, Vietnamese/white, non-binary) mother often tried to distract them from asking about her past: “usually she's just like, ‘You're paying too much attention to my side of the family, and you need to do more to acknowledge your dad's family's culture.' And I'm like, ‘What culture is that?' [Laughs]”

Limited communication about the past

Participants described communication from family members about the past that were limited in some way, leaving participants with an incomplete or unclear understanding of what happened. Some participants reported hearing stories about the past that were confusing or inconsistent. For example, Vivian (32, Vietnamese/white, non-binary) asked multiple family members why their mother ended up immigrating to the US separately from the rest of the family and was unable to find clarity: “I was so confused when I was growing up. Like, why wasn't my mom with her family? I'm still confused. Because everyone has a different version of why she was separated.” Participants also discussed hearing stories they doubted were true or seemed too extreme to be true. For example, Cynthia (24, Chinese-Vietnamese, woman) shared that her grandmother claimed to have swam from mainland China to Hong Kong to see Cynthia's grandfather:

She claims! And, like, I don't know how much I can believe her. I don't know if, like, she swam from one place to another; that part might be true. But, like, was it really Hong Kong, or was it, like, Hong Kong-adjacent, or, like, what did she really swim across? I'm not sure. But I do believe that she did have that experience of swimming somewhere to go see my grandpa.

For these participants, not being sure what to believe added a layer of confusion to their understanding of their family history.

Some participants described their parents only sharing very limited pieces of information about their lives during historical trauma events. For example, Ly (31, Cambodian, woman) said that the only thing her father had shared about his childhood was “just that he was very poor. Um, he had no pants and would walk around naked. That's all I know about his childhood.” Other participants shared that their parents would make brief mentions of family history related to historical trauma without elaborating. Pa (36, Hmong, woman) shared the only time she could recall her father mentioning his experience during the Secret War:

my dad doesn't really talk much about it. I just heard him one time when, you know, him and my ex-husband, when they first met for the first time, and he was just like, “You know, I love my daughter. In the war I shot the big gun.” And I'm like, I don't know what a “big gun” is; could it be a cannon? Like, what is it, you know? So that's all I—I really know.

Almost half of participants described their conversations about the past with a parent not being in depth. For example, Lisa (20, Lao, woman) expressed some frustration about how her mother tended to answer her questions about the past on a “very surface level” and shared “no actual stories that are worthwhile,” just “the silly ones, like ‘when I got my ears pierced, they got infected!”'

Many participants reported that their families tended to share a limited range of stories from the past or seemed to have a limited repertoire of stories they would repeat. Some participants described their family members primarily sharing positive stories about the past or stories about innocuous topics like food. Lisa (20, Lao, woman) described how even when her mother referenced her experiences of historical trauma, she would focus only on the positive aspects of her experience:

Every time we look through and through her pictures and stuff from when she was at those [refugee] camps, she would always, like, sort of focus on the positives and stuff, like, “Oh, those are all my friends!” and stuff, and not about, like, why she ended up there.

In contrast, other participants described family members sharing primarily negative stories about the past. Ash (28, Filipino/white, non-binary) reflected on how their grandmother seemed to focus on her negative past experiences, particularly her difficult marriage to Ash's grandfather and growing up during World War II.

So I think those two sort of formative things—the marriage and the World War—they shade her image of the Philippines… I kind of wanted a full picture when I was interviewing her, so I had some sadness, of, you know, “Man, Lola, that sucks, and also, can you tell me a little more about, like, the banana trees?” [Laughs] Like that when she was telling me her—her horrible stories.

Ly (31, Cambodian, woman) grew up hearing the same stories about her mother's adverse experiences: “As far as I can remember, I've been hearing these stories… I can repeat it in my sleep.”

Some participants described their family members only sharing information from the past in small pieces which the participants then put together over time, rather than sharing full, coherent stories. For example, Rachel (27, Chinese-Vietnamese, woman) shared that her parents' immigration story was “very fuzzy to me; like, my parents don't really talk about it, so this is, like, what I've picked up on from over the years.” Similarly, Amy (34, Hmong, woman) said of her father, “it isn't like he told me a story; he told me pieces, bits and pieces, and then I put it together.” Some participants shared that they suspected that there was more about the past that their parents were not sharing. As Ash (28, Filipino/white, non-binary) speculated:

I think, like, the safe stories, you know, the ones that don't require her to examine anything, or bring up any painful memories, or anything like that. Or if they were painful, they were like, um… [Interviewer: Not too painful?] Yeah! Yeah, just, like, there's the painful ones, and there's, like, the really painful ones. So she'd go here, but not go there.

Not asking about the past

Participants discussed their role in not prompting communication about the past. Some participants shared that they felt they simply had not had much opportunity to ask their parents about the past. For example, Pa's (36, Hmong, woman) parents were often busy working multiple jobs while she was growing up, so “quality time and thoughtful conversations were, like, rare and few and far in between.” Amy (34, Hmong, woman) shared that asking her parents about the past did not feel natural to her: “I'm not the type of person to be like, ‘Mom, tell me your life story.”' For Lisa (20, Lao, woman), “It's, like, really awkward—it still is now—to ask about things, like, in the past, with her life, because she's not really an open person that way with, like, talking about serious issues.” Others, like Kim (30, Vietnamese, woman), said they did not want to ask about the past to avoid aggravating family conflicts: “I think with [my mom's] strained relationship with her family, um, I think having her think about her past, I think, is a little bit—I would feel a little bit more sensitive to asking.”

Reasons for not communicating about the past

Participants discussed reasons their parents or other family members may not want to talk about the past with them. Some participants surmised that their parents avoided certain topics because they were too difficult or traumatic. Sarah (39, Vietnamese, woman) said her parents did not talk about their voyage to the US by boat: “I think it's one of those things that were—like, it was almost, like, so traumatic that they don't really talk about it.” She noted that this was a general pattern or attitude she observed in her parents: “you don't talk about these emotions, and you don't talk about, like, stuff that's, like, traumatic… you just push it down.” Some participants' parents were reluctant to talk about the past because they did not want to burden their children with it. Amy (34, Hmong, woman) said of her parents:

they never expressed their emotions or feelings or their trauma to me growing up, just because to them it's like, “Why would I want to relive this…Why would I want to tell my children this, when it was so traumatic?” Right? Like, “I don't want them to feel the same pain I felt; I want to give them better,” you know. I think that was always my dad's thought process was: “I used—I used to be poor; I don't want to be poor for my children,” you know? “They deserve better.”

Several participants described their family members as not discussing the past because they were focused on the present or the future. As Miriam shared, “[my parents] are just, like, focused on the future. They're just like, ‘You need to go to school, get a good job,' whatever.” Similarly, Naomi (32, Japanese/white, woman) said of her mother, “I feel like she was always, like, looking toward the future, and not the past; like, she's always just, like… been working so hard and, like, trying to make her goals.” For some participants' families, this focus on the present or the future appeared to be related to their immigration to the US. Sarah (39, Vietnamese, woman) explained, “it was almost as if, like, they were always wanting to move forward. Embracing, like, being in America. Embracing the opportunity that was going to be had for me and everything like that.” Jenny (26, Vietnamese, woman) shared that she had heard from peers that they felt similarly:

I've heard [from] some—some of my Vietnamese American friends, too, that, like, sometimes there's, like, reluctance of, like, sharing [about the past], of, like, feeling like, “Oh, why does it matter when we're… we're in America now; this is, like, the present, and this is what's important.”

Relatedly, some participants described their family members as seeming to feel that talking about the past was not important. Jenny shared that she got the sense from her parents that it was “not that they were reluctant to share, but that they wouldn't see that there's much… value in it, almost? […] there's nothing really, like, important or special about it.”

Some participants felt that their family members did not talk about certain topics because they considered the participants too young to hear about them. Michelle (38, Taiwanese, woman) surmised that her parents shared more about their past over time because “I think naturally you become more open, right? Because your kids are older [and] hopefully can understand more.” Some participants, like Eli (23, Chinese, non-binary) speculated that their parents shared less about the past because Eli seemed uninterested in it when they were younger: “when you're younger, you're usually like, ‘Ugh, I don't want to hear these stories again.' […] I have to make it clear that I'm curious now.” Other participants suspected their family members did not talk about the past because they did not think the younger generation would understand their experiences. As Kim (30, Vietnamese, woman) shared, “I feel like growing up they didn't talk too much about those things since it was so hard for, like, a young kid in America to understand… what that would be like.” Katherine (23, Chinese-Vietnamese, woman) further explained,

a lot of, like, the things that we talk about and a lot of the things that we complain about, like, really, you know, pale in comparison, you know? [Laughs] Yeah, like, we—I complain about school, but it's, like, you know, they couldn't even go to school…

Theme 4: Psychological meaning-making

The final theme captures how participants incorporated their knowledge of their family history into their understanding of themselves and their family members. Although this was not a research question guiding the study, it became a prominent theme identified in participants' responses to interview questions.

Understanding of the survivor generation(s)

Participants shared how they interpreted their parents' and grandparents' behavior in the context of their knowledge of their families' experiences of historical trauma. Some participants felt their family members had not addressed or processed their trauma. To Ly (31, Cambodian, woman), her mother's perseveration on the past seemed to be a consequence of unaddressed trauma: “my mom talks about it all the time. She's traumatized by it. [Laughs] She talks about it all the time.” Ash (28, Filipino/white, non-binary) described how they perceived their grandmother in light of her trauma:

I think she's a very traumatized person who has never addressed any of that. And so, it seems like she goes through the whole world assuming that it's out to attack her. Like, you know, I just kind of imagine her never having got out of that headspace of, you know, [the] Japanese army, and—which served her very well at that time, and not so well when she's having dinner with her grandkids… In her next life, I hope she gets therapy… or gets some kind of way of coping with this.

Regarding their mother, Ash shared:

…the emotional turmoil is the clearest thing that still impacts her today. Um, she also tends to relate to people very similarly to the way my Lola [grandma] relates to people… she's not a hugger, she doesn't say “I love you” or that she's proud of us, or, like, any—like, any expression of affection is just—it's not a thing that she does. And so I—I imagine that if she had been hugged when she was little, she'd be more, you know, prone to hugging her kids as well… to me, those things are connected.

Ash and other participants understood their family members as being psychologically affected by their experiences of historical trauma and in turn viewed the intergenerational relationships within their families as shaped by historical trauma.

Understanding of self

Participants described the complex ways in which they incorporated their knowledge of previous generations' experiences of historical trauma into their understanding of themselves. Some participants shared how their family history shaped their interests or traits. Pa (36, Hmong, woman) felt that her family's history gave her the traits necessary to pursue a career in business:

the strong woman that I am today, and, like, the entrepreneur that I am today, is because of my mom. She shaped me to be this strong woman that I am, and that I should never depend on anybody… If I want to make anything happen, I have to do it myself. And that's kind of why, like, I'm so strong minded… it's because of them.

Other participants also shared that they drew strength and motivation from their family histories. Katherine (23, Chinese, woman) shared that her parents and their experiences “kind of instilled that type of, like, high self-esteem… I think I've had way more room to make mistakes than them, so it's—that affects… my, like, decisions to… not be afraid to fail.” For Danny (34, Filipino, man), knowing his family history instilled a sense of resilience: “it affords me… a little bit of mental stability… there are generations that came before me that probably went through some sort of shit, and they got through it, you know?” Henry (29, Chinese, man) reflected on how the strategies for resilience he learned from his parents could be both an asset and a challenge:

I view it as a strength, but then I think… it's not good for, like, trying to relate or console a wife [laughs] because there's a sense of like, “it's no big deal” […] there's a voice in the back of my head that sometimes just says, like, “Why are you making such a big deal about this? …just brush it off. Like, whatever, just move on.” [Laughs] Like, “this is nothing.”

Some participants described having high expectations of themselves because of the hardships they knew their families had gone through in order for them to have the comparatively comfortable lives they did. As Henry described, knowing about his parents' past experiences gave him an appreciation of his circumstances relative to his parents':

…it gives me a view of, like… the difficulties that, like, they had to endure, and sort of, like, recognizing that I shouldn't kind of squander the opportunities that they've given [me]… [that I'm] able to live today in a more comfortable position than they were at [my] age.

Cynthia (24, Chinese-Vietnamese, woman) shared how comparing herself with her parents' experiences was something that could make her evaluate herself negatively:

It makes me think that I could've achieved so much more… sometimes I think about, like, okay, like, if I was my dad, and, you know, they were shooting at my boat that I'm trying to escape on, you know, they're fighting to live; they're swimming and they're fighting to just go somewhere else… and in that moment the world is kind of against them. Like, damn, do I really have, like, such a strong desire to live as they did? […] for my parents, it's like, they suffered through a lot; they made a lot of sacrifices. …literally my ancestors just put all these coins into my bucket, thinking that I'm going to lead, you know, our legacy toward the future. And here I am, like, kind of ready to give up… just because it—it feels difficult. And, like, “difficult” is, like, you know, so subjective, because difficult now was not their difficult, and yet they still pushed through.

For Cynthia, the extreme circumstances her parents overcame made her question her own accomplishments and worth, as well as whether she could live up to something great enough to match their sacrifice and determination to survive.

This study aimed to identify themes in Asian American adult children of immigrants' experiences of intergenerational communication about historical trauma with their immigrant parents and family members. The findings add to the small body of literature on Asian American historical trauma as well as the literature on intergenerational family storytelling. While previous research on Asian American historical trauma has focused on specific individual ethnic groups, this study examines historical trauma and intergenerational communication about historical trauma across Asian American ethnic groups. Findings from the present study support and elaborat on results from previous studies and suggest that at least some dynamics and features of intergenerational communication about historical trauma may be shared across Asian American ethnic communities.

Participants reported varied levels of knowledge about family and ethnic group history depending on how much their parents and other immigrant family members engaged in intergenerational communication about historical trauma. Most participants had some knowledge of their parents' lives in their home countries and the circumstances of their parents' immigration to the US. Participants described their families living through various experiences of historical trauma including poverty, war, political instability, fleeing their home countries, and living in refugee camps. Some participants had heard detailed narratives from their parents or other family members about their experiences of historical trauma, while others had heard only limited information or seemingly superficial stories. Some participants reported knowing that their family members had specific experiences related to historical trauma but did not know much detail about what those experiences were like for those family members.

Participants identified common contexts which facilitated intergenerational communication about historical trauma, highlighting the importance of breaking silence about historical trauma at various levels of society as described by Liem (2007). Participants' discussion of how educational contexts (e.g., school assignments) provided avenues for engaging their parents in intergenerational communication about historical trauma mirrored how Lin et al. (2009) described how education serving as a “catalyst” for intergenerational communication about historical trauma. Participants in the present study reported that asking their parents about the past for academic reasons created an opportunity for communication that was mutually acceptable to participants and their parents: parents who may have otherwise been reluctant to discuss the past were more willing to do so for the sake of the participants' academic success, as this was an important value to them. Expanding on the findings from previous research, the present study also illustrated how teachers knowledgeable of their students' diverse immigration backgrounds could encourage students to explore their family history. Furthermore, education that highlighted marginalized histories, such as ethnic studies courses, were identified by participants as promoting their inquiry into their own family histories. This is consistent with Lee and Clarke (2013)'s finding that the exclusion of students' ethnic group histories in school curricula can reinforce silence about historical trauma.

Media such as films, books, and plays about Asian American immigrant experiences also provided starting points for intergenerational communication about historical trauma. Similarly, Lin et al. (2009)'s found that representations of the Cambodian Genocide in media gave the older generation of Cambodian Americans a way to share their experiences with the younger generation. Some participants in the present study also referenced more recent iterations of Asian and Asian American representation, such as works by Asian American writers and artists as well as content on social media platforms, demonstrating how the expansion of media about Asian and Asian American experiences beyond war documentaries and orientalizing narratives like Miss Saigon can facilitate intergenerational communication about historical trauma. As with educational contexts, some participants found that connecting their questions about their parents' pasts with relevant media they had engaged with recently made the questions more acceptable to their parents.

Time spent with extended family was another context that facilitated communication about the past which has not been substantially explored in previous literature. Participants in the present study shared how extended family gatherings opened conversations about the past beyond what was discussed within the nuclear family, as reminiscing seemed to occur more organically when their parents were with other family members who shared their experiences. For some participants, these times when extended family members told stories together were intentionally used by participants' parents as opportunities to teach participants about their family history. For these families, gathering with relatives was an opportunity to break silence about historical trauma and co-construct family stories.

Participants described their parents or other family members sometimes using intergenerational communication about historical trauma to teach them “life lessons.” As described in the intergenerational storytelling literature, older generations may share stories with younger generations to impart lessons (Fivush and Kellas, 2025; Merrill and Fivush, 2016); however, the “lessons” participants in the present study recalled were typically not delivered in elaborated stories but rather in briefer comments or admonitions. Participants did not describe these instances as necessarily negative, but some described feeling guilty, misunderstood, or dismissed in these moments. Other studies of Asian American historical trauma have also found that intergenerational communication about historical trauma often occurs in moments of anger or conflict or when parents were reprimanding their children (Jeyasundaram et al., 2020; Lin et al., 2009; Lin and Suyemoto, 2016). Meschke and Juang (2014) found that their Hmong American participants sometimes found it hard to communicate with parents about their emotional needs because their parents would respond dismissively: “they had to go through a war… For us to be crying, it was so naïve or childish” (p. 151). Similarly, for participants in the current study, hearing that their parents had gone through worse sometimes had the effect of silencing participants' attempts to share about their problems or of making participants feel their parents did not care to understand them.

As in the wider literature on historical trauma, silence about the past was commonly reported by participants in the present study (Danieli et al., 2016). Almost all participants described members of their family as infrequently talking about the past. Some participants found that their family members were willing to discuss the past if asked directly about it, while others found that their family members avoided or resisted talking about the past. Like participants in other studies (e.g., Jeyasundaram et al., 2020), some participants in the present study reported that their parents might share some general information about historical events they lived through without giving much detail about their personal experiences of these events. Some participants described parents or other family members directly or indirectly resisting talking about the past or discouraging them from asking about it. As in Lin et al. (2009)'s study, many participants in the present study described intergenerational communication about historical trauma that was “partial” or “ambivalent” (p. 200); for example, participants picked up small pieces of family history over time that they tried to string together into a coherent narrative. Participants in the present study described their family history as something that could be “fuzzy,” “confused,” or even “unknowable.”

Participants identified various reasons their parents and family members did not talk about the past with them. In line with the wider literature on historical trauma, some participants' family members seemed to want to avoid discussing traumatic experiences or avoid burdening the participants' generation with their trauma (Danieli, 2007; Nagata et al., 2015). Another reason some participants gave for their parents not discussing the past was a focus on the present and future living in the US, including pursuit of academic and career success. This may relate to the emphasis many participants' parents placed on education and financial security rooted in their experiences of historical trauma, as well as to dominant narratives about immigrating to the US (e.g., the American dream). Jeyasundaram et al. (2020) noted that participants who were children of Vietnamese refugees discussed how their parents worked to fit into the mold of the “useful migrant” as opposed to migrants who are perceived to be drains on society, a schema similar to the model minority myth (p. 416). Future research can examine how the attitude of focusing on the future while striving to leave the pre-migration past behind may relate to pressure to adhere to the model minority myth for Asian American immigrant parents who have experienced historical trauma.

Some participants described behaviors in their family members, such as repetitive telling of stories about traumatic experiences and emotional outbursts, which they interpreted as trauma-related and seemed to play a role in how the older generations did or did not engage in intergenerational communication about historical trauma with the participants. This corresponds with the ways in which Lin et al. (2009) and Lin and Suyemoto (2016) suggested that unresolved post-traumatic symptoms or intense emotional distress could curtail parents' engagement in intergenerational communication about historical trauma that benefited their children. Some participants in the present study expressed the wish that their parents or grandparents could receive therapy for their trauma, pointing to a possible unmet need for culturally appropriate mental health support for older Asian American immigrants who have experienced historical trauma.

Parents' and grandparents' experiences of historical trauma also shaped how participants understood themselves, pointing to the role of intergenerational storytelling within families can play in personal identity development and intergenerational transmission of values and lessons about how to approach challenges in life (Merrill and Fivush, 2016). Some participants felt internal pressure to persevere and live up to their families' dreams and sacrifices because of their knowledge of their family's historical trauma. This corresponds with the indebtedness participants in Jeyasundaram et al. (2020)'s study felt to their refugee parents: participants felt they needed to meet their parents' expectations of success because “my parents risked their lives [coming] here for a better life for me… I have to be successful, [...] otherwise, everything would be in vain (p. 417).” Similarly, participants in the present study felt driven to achieve by an internal sense of what their family history meant for them.

Limitations and future directions

The findings of this study should be interpreted with consideration of its limitations. First, the participants may not be representative of the Asian American population as a whole. The participants were highly educated and predominately Southeast Asian (75%), and only one participant was South Asian. There are important differences between Asian American subgroups that may shape immigrant parents' experiences of historical trauma and their communication with their children about historical trauma, such as differences in educational attainment and socioeconomic status (AAPI Data, 2022). South Asian Americans in particular are often forgotten or excluded when the category of Asian American is invoked (Vinluan and Remedios, 2024). Given that participants self-identified as having parents who experienced adversity before immigrating, self-selection of participants is another limitation on generalizability of the sample; for example, the participants in this study may have had greater knowledge of or interest in family history than Asian American children of immigrants generally. Additionally, the data collected in this study reflects only the participants' perspectives and their experience or interpretation of interactions with their family members; the perspectives and experiences of the survivor generations are not directly captured in this study.

Future research is needed on intergenerational communication about historical trauma for specific Asian American ethnic groups given their varied histories of migration and historical trauma. These nuances may have important implications for intergenerational communication about historical trauma that are not captured in the present study. For example, for some participants, it was their parents and even siblings who experienced major historical trauma events such as war, whereas for others it was their grandparents who experienced these events and their parents who grew up in the aftermath. It is possible that the dynamics of intergenerational communication about historical trauma shifts with temporal and generational distance from major traumatic events or with the compounding of historical traumas. Additionally, research on intergenerational storytelling has primarily focused on nuclear families; further research is needed on storytelling within the extended family system (Merrill and Fivush, 2016). The extremely limited body of research on Asian American immigrant historical trauma must expand beyond its current confines to capture the experiences of the wider range of Asian American ethnic groups whose historical trauma has been silenced in the psychological literature (Cai and Lee, 2022).

Research on intergenerational communication about historical trauma in Asian American immigrant families should also investigate how this communication can be most beneficial to families. While research has shown that silence about historical trauma can be detrimental to both the survivor and subsequent generations, the mere presence of communication about historical trauma is not necessarily positive—many other qualities must be considered, such as timing, developmental appropriateness, and cultural norms around communication (Dalgaard and Montgomery, 2015; Lin and Suyemoto, 2016). The findings of the present study were consistent with Lin and Suyemoto's (2016) proposal that constructive communication requires sensitivity to the survivor generation's trauma and emotions, both parties' willingness, motivation, and readiness to engage, and developmental appropriateness of the communication for younger generation. Findings also supported the notion that some forms of intergenerational communication about historical trauma may hurt the younger generation's psychological adjustment or the parent-child relationship. Some participants described instances of intergenerational communication about historical trauma that induced negative emotions about themselves or their parents, exacerbated conflicts between them and their parents, or pushed them away from their parents. Previous research suggests that modulated disclosure, or intergenerational communication about historical trauma that is calibrated to the child's needs, is the style of communication that is most beneficial in terms of the child's psychological adjustment (Dalgaard et al., 2016). More research is needed to examine what styles of intergenerational communication about historical trauma facilitate positive outcomes in Asian American immigrant families and how this communication can be improved within families to promote psychological wellbeing and other positive outcomes.

Implications

Findings from this study highlight the importance of education that includes the experiences of marginalized communities in breaking silence around historical trauma and promoting constructive intergenerational communication within families. School assignments that asked about family history provided structured opportunities for participants to ask their parents about the past and that their parents also considered acceptable, legitimate, and valuable. Educators should be knowledgeable of the ethnic group histories of the students they serve and incorporate this awareness into their curriculums and assignments. This study also showed how ethnic studies courses can encourage students' engagement with their family history and support the psychosocial value of including ethnic studies curriculums in various levels of education.

Arts and media may offer another point of intervention for facilitating intergenerational communication about historical trauma. Continuing to increase representation of Asian American experiences in art and media and engaging communities with that media may provide further opportunities for families and wider ethnic communities to break silence around historical trauma. Liem (2007)'s exhibit of oral histories from Korean War survivors presented alongside art installations, film, and photography offers a model which could be adapted around other forms of Asian American media. Social media in particular offers a new mechanism for disseminating and engaging with Asian American stories which may be more accessible to individuals and families.

This study also suggests that understanding historical trauma and how it exerts intergenerational effects is important for clinicians seeking to provide culturally competent care to Asian Americans. For some participants, intergenerational communication about historical trauma and how that communication shaped how they viewed themselves and their families were topics they explored in psychotherapy. Clinicians should be prepared to explore historical trauma with Asian American clients as it relates to their mental health, identity development, and family relationships and recognize knowledge about historical trauma as part of the cultural knowledge required to provide culturally competent services (Sue, 2006). Contextualizing their experiences in an understanding of historical trauma and Asian/Asian American history may be valuable for helping Asian American children of immigrants better understand themselves and their families.